Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/127

 96 Marathi Hindus in the administrations of the Chaghatai Emperors of India.

Though the Arabs, during their invasions of Eastern Turkistan in the eighth century, had done their best to impose the Musulman religion on the old Uighur population, it seems that they met only with very partial success, as far as the bulk of the people was concerned. They no doubt converted the Kara-Khani, as is shown by the coinage, and it is probable that from the eleventh century onwards, the population in the western districts was largely Muhammadan. In the central and eastern parts, however, the Uighurs continued to be Buddhists and belonged to the red sect of that religion; but Nestorian Christianity must also have been fairly prevalent among them. They are spoken of very generally as Tarsi, and according to some authorities, this should be taken to indicate that they were Christians; but as regards the exact meaning of the word Tarsi, there are differences of opinion. In many cases it was, no doubt, applied to the Nestorians in various parts of Asia, but it was also applied to the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, and was even used to denote idolators.

Strangely enough, the only two European accounts we have of the Uighurs in the Middle Ages (the thirteenth century) differ on this subject: Plano Carpini stating positively that they were Nestorian Christians, while William Rubruk, only eight years later, pronounces them, with equal certainty, to have been idolators, and he adds that they dwelt in towns together with Nestorians and others. It is possible that Rubruk may have regarded most of those he saw as Buddhists, and that he classed all Buddhists with idolators; if so, he would only have been following the practice of many of the Musulman writers, who drew no very clear distinction between religions that were foreign to their own. But however uncertain this may be, the name of Tarsi frequently included the Nestorians, though it was ordinarily used, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to indicate the Uighurs as a nation—or more particularly the Uighurs of the eastern Tian Shan. It is in this latter sense that Friar John of Montecorvino, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, speaks of the Tarsi tongue, for he could not have meant a Buddhist tongue. About the same period, too, the Armenian author Hayton, Prince of Gorigos, in his account of the kingdoms of Asia, expressly applies the name of Tarsi to